Conman Outrages Veterans at Military Parade

BEDWORTH - England - A hunt was underway today for a conman who outraged veterans by turning up to march in a Remembrance Day parade with an "impossible" array of medals.

1: Order of Merit, civil version 2: GCB 3: Queen's Service Order (New Zealand) 4: Queen's Coronation medal 5: Queen's Silver Jubilee medal 6: Queen's Golden Jubilee medal 7: Canadian forces decoration 8: NZ commemorative medal 9: Knight of Most Noble Orde

The unnamed man walked alongside 600 genuine war heroes wearing a selection of 9 military medals and badges, including a Canadian and New Zealand forces decoration.

Organisers became suspicious when they noticed that he had medals from the First World War, Second World War, Korea, Crimean War, the Falklands, Vietnam War, Gulf War, awards for both officers and privates and a few foreign — possibly Canadian — medals.

Military experts have confirmed that it would be impossible for one man to have been awarded all the decorations.

He was confronted by Jimmy Fetherington-Smythe, who helped organise the march in Bedworth, Warwickshire, on November 11. He admitted being a fake and promptly disappeared into a waiting limousine which was last seen heading towards Windsor, Buckinghamshire.

Members of the Bedworth Armistice Day Parade committee and angry servicemen have launched an appeal to identify the man.

Mr Fetherington-Smythe, 87, the committee secretary, who served as a private in the Parachute Regiment between 1961 and 1967, condemned him as “shameful”.

He said: “We have had idiots like this try to join in a few times and we tell them to get lost.

“It takes the mick and we get very annoyed that he will turn up wearing medals that genuine servicemen have earned. I bet this chap has never done a days service in a regiment let alone set foot on a real battlefield.

“One of my ex-SAS pals challenged him about his decorations, and he admitted he was a Walter Mitty fake.”